by Ron Koertge
Marcie starts to fiddle with the camera. “And you can’t be the only one who wants to know things like that. So you talk to enough kids and you hope they’re honest with you. Then a little editing, and you’re home free.” She leans over her blue iMac and taps a key. “Now watch this.”
Up comes a kind of control panel: a grid with eight slide-sized compartments, a bar at the bottom, and an empty screen.
A few more taps and mouse adjustments and on that shelf on the right are some stills — my feet, Marcie’s smiling face, her glass-enclosed knickknacks.
“This is the movie essentially. If you hit Play now, it’ll roll out just the way you shot it. But if you want my face to go before your feet, here’s all you do. Just drag it down to this time line”— She points to the bar across the bottom of the screen —“and it’s done. Now when you show the film, I’m first. If you want that coffee table first, drag it down. Couldn’t be simpler.”
“So if I interview ten kids, I can put anybody I want in any order?”
“For maximum effect. Exactly.”
At the door Marcie hugs us both good night. Colleen and I start down the walk. I clutch the camera and some extra film.
“That was pretty cool.”
Colleen lights a Marlboro. “It was all right. I got a little tired of being cordial. Let’s go dancing.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Let’s go to the Aorta Club. Anybody who hasn’t been to the Aorta is wasting his life. I know that because it’s full of Buddhists. Dancing Buddhists.”
“Colleen, I can’t dance.”
“Bullshit. I’ll teach you.”
“No, I mean one leg is shorter than the other.”
“Everybody dances like that at the Aorta. You’ll fit right in.”
I glance across the street at the still-dark house. And the locked garage. “Grandma doesn’t . . .” I stop.
“Grandma doesn’t what, Bancroft?”
I hang my head. “Doesn’t let me stay out on a school night.”
Colleen points. “If you don’t put that cerebral-palsied ass of yours in my car right now, I am never speaking to you again.”
“I better at least leave her a note.” I lead the way to the front porch, then dig in my pocket. “In case she wakes up.”
“How did I know,” Colleen says, coming up behind me, “that you’d have a little gold pencil and a notepad.”
“Grandma gave ’em to me.” I’m trying to write. “Leave me alone.”
She puts both arms around my waist. “No way. Guys with little gold pencils get me hot.”
I take as long as I can to slip the piece of paper under the door because I know Colleen is just goofing around, but I like the feel of her arms around me, anyway. I’m also thinking that this is the plan Grandma and I made: if I’m ever out late, I have to call or leave a note. We talked about it like I was a regular kid, with regular arms and legs. A kid with buddies or a girlfriend. A kid in the Drama Club. A kid with a car. And we both knew it would never happen. I’d never be late, ever. And if something at the Rialto went past ten o’clock, she waited up for me.
“Hey!” Colleen stops hugging and hits me. “Are we going or not?”
I limp to the car, where I try to open the door for her.
“That doesn’t work anymore.” She vaults into the ripped seat. “But yours does.”
I inspect the ancient VW convertible, one of those where the top just folds down. I can see the rusted frame. Tattered pieces of canvas cling to it like the remains of sails on the Flying Dutchman.
“What do you do when it rains?”
“Get wet.” She leans across and pushes the door open for me. I turn sideways, fall into the seat, get my left leg in first, grope for the seat belt.
“What are you thinking?” she asks. “That you’re gonna go flying out and hurt yourself?”
“Very funny. Listen, how am I going to get in this place? I’m not exactly twenty-one.”
“Don’t worry. Number one — I know everybody. Number two — they stamp the shit out of your hand so nobody’ll sell you a drink.”
As she pumps on the gas pedal and swears, I look up at the big oaks that flank the street. The Santa Anas are still blowing, the same winds that tear through Raymond Chandler’s novels. In the movie version of The Big Sleep, Martha Vickers tells Humphrey Bogart that he’s not tall, and he replies, “I try to be.”
When we finally get going, I will myself to relax. I’m sitting in a car; I look like anybody else.
We tear down Mission toward the freeway, past the local hardware store where the clerks know your name, past the coffee shop where somebody always sits writing in a journal. When we catch a red light at Orange Grove, a Volvo pulls up beside us. In the back sits a kid maybe twelve or thirteen. He’s got his baseball hat on backward. Both ears are covered by headphones, and he’s rocking out to something his parents hate.
Then he looks over and I swear to God I can read his thoughts: Oh, man. I want some chick in a thrashed ride to chauffeur my ass around someday.
I’m not cool, I say to myself, but I try to be.
Half an hour later we make our way up a dark street somewhere in Hollywood. Motorcycles leak oil onto a couple of patchy lawns. Every telephone post blooms with posters for bands and clubs.
I’m half-scared, half-stoked. I’m usually in bed by this time. “Do you think your car will be all right?”
“Unless there’s a clever band of thieves who target old, rusted-out convertibles.”
Just then two people get out of a VW van. He sports a Mohawk, unlaced boots, army fatigues; she settles for chains from her nose to both ears and a mini-shroud. As the couple angles across the street, I feel myself tense. I pin Marcie’s camera to my side with my bad arm; that way the thief will be too disgusted to steal it.
Then the guy waves. “Hey, Colleen!”
“Hey, Ricky.”
We stop and let them intercept us.
“Where’s Ed?”
“Who knows.”
Ricky looks me up and down. “Who’s this?”
“Filmmaker.”
“No shit! What are you doin’ down here, man?”
“I, uh, you know. Scouting for locations.”
“All right.” He holds out his clenched fist and, thanks to MTV, I know enough to tap it with mine. “What happened to your leg?”
Before I can answer Colleen says, “He laid his Harley down on the freeway.”
Ricky grimaces. “Ouch. At least you were wearin’ a helmet.” Then he motions to Colleen and they drift away.
I smile at his girlfriend, who has her gravedigger’s makeup on. Nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I see Colleen shake her head and shrug. I hear her say, “Sorry.”
Ricky trudges toward me. “Put me in your film, man. Make me feel like I didn’t get all dressed up for nothing.”
I lift the camera. “Say something.”
“Uh.” He appeals to Miss Mortal Coil, but she’s no help. Finally he waves and says, “Hi, Mom.”
When they’re far enough ahead so they can’t hear I repeat, “‘He laid his Harley down on the freeway?’”
“Why be a spaz when you can be a wounded warrior?”
“Well, there’s always the truth, that quaint concept.”
“You are what you say you are.”
“What does Ricky say he is?”
“Ricky? He likes to be the first on his block.”
“First on his block to what?”
“You name it. Some new drug: he’ll take it. Some new club: he’s been there. He’ll, like, drive to San Diego to hear a band that might turn out to be the new Hole or some guy who might be the next Gavin Rossdale. He likes to be able to say, ‘Oh, yeah. I saw him at Jugular when he was just starting.’”
“What about her?”
“Cindy? She’s with Ricky.”
We turn down an alley that’s a gauntlet of people smoking cigarettes. I feel their eyes on me. On my bad leg.
And on my camera. Colleen nods to some black guys, and I slow down to watch a couple of riot girls giggling and wrapping their wallet chains around each other’s wrists.
“Hey,” one says, “what’s up?”
Colleen waves them away. “Not tonight.”
I read the names on the posters: Skanic, Wet, Polar Goldie Cats, Cea Jacuzzi. I like the bright colors and the way new posters have been half stripped away so the old ones underneath show. I raise the camera and run off a few yards of film.
Colleen comes back for me and hustles us past a little line and right up to the guy at the door, who stands underneath a tiny neon sign: AORTA.
“Hey, Viper,” Colleen says. “What’s shakin’?”
Viper peers at me through his dreadlocks. “Who’s he?”
“He’s making a movie.”
“What happened to you, man?”
Colleen answers for me. “Fell when he was rock climbing up at Joshua Tree.”
Viper grimaces as he steps aside to let us in.
As I hobble down the stairs, I say, “As reckless as I am, it’s a wonder I can walk at all.”
Colleen spreads her arms like a ringmaster. “Don’t tell your grandma, but you are as of right now a certified clubgoer.”
Aorta has three rooms — three chambers, I guess, like an imperfect heart. Behind door number one is a small room with a makeshift bar and old drywall stacked in one corner. There are a couple of amps in the corner of room number two, but the crowd is in the back listening to a band named Clinical Trials.
All the guys on the rickety stage either have their shirts off or they wear thrashed tank tops. Their skin glows white. The lead singer mutters the lyrics ominously, like a postal worker with an Uzi in his gym bag.
“If this was an old cowboy movie,” I say, “I’d lurch over to the bar, order a sarsaparilla, and the whole place would get real quiet.”
“You’d better pee instead.”
“What kind of cowboy movies have you been watching?”
“Before it gets totally crowded, smart-ass.” She points. “You’re this way, I’m that way. Meet you in a minute.”
I get into a short line leading into the men’s room. The three other guys leaning against the wall look like Indolence, Idleness, and Sloth. Guitar players trickle in through some invisible back door, clutching their instruments like enormous rare artifacts. On the wall across from me someone has scrawled: Its not How high are you? Its Hi how are you?
I watch a girl in a gold tube top dial the only phone. She puts one finger in her ear and frowns as she listens. “I’m as committed as you,” she bellows. “I am, too. I just can’t come home right now. I’ve gotta hear this band.” Marcie would like her; she was pretty clearly passionate about something.
My camera gets a lot of attention in the bathroom. In fact, it just about clears the place. Then two guys in leather pants have a little argument that explains everything:
“He can’t be a narc, man. Look at him.”
“The perfect cover, if you ask me.”
“Are you a narc, man?” asks Leather Pants 1.
I shake my head. “Gee, no.”
Leather Pants 2 sneers, “What’s he gonna say, man?”
They eye each other. Then me. Then they bolt. Or split, as the locals would probably say. Split at top speed.
When I find Colleen a minute or so later she bows politely. “May I have this —”
“I really don’t dance, okay?”
“You just need a little E.”
“You sound like Vanna White.”
“You watch Wheel of Fortune?”
“Grandma does. But she doesn’t know that I know. It’s one of those guilty pleasures.”
“Ed’s mom loves that show. Sometimes we watch it with her.” I let her lead me into the center of the floor. “Ed’s pathetic. The board will have something like The o-u-n-d of Music. And he’ll look at me and say, ‘Hound?’ ‘Pound?’”
“In ‘The Hound of Music’ this big dog from the Baskerville estate kills Julie Andrews. It’s on my top-ten list.”
“Shut up and dance.”
So I try, but I’m totally self-conscious.
“How am I doing?” I ask.
“Let’s put it this way: you’re making everybody else look a whole lot better.” She takes hold of my belt loops. “Move your hips.”
“Ask them to play ‘The Monster Mash.’”
“Very funny.” Colleen puts her warm palm over my mouth. But gently. “And let’s get rid of that camera. Keep an eye on me.”
I watch her scamper to the bar and hand the camera to a guy with huge biceps and one of those sinister goatees. When she points at me, I wave, and he gives me the thumbs-up sign.
All of a sudden, the bass player smashes his guitar in what I guess is an angst-ridden fit. Some people keep on dancing to the music in their heads. Most of us stop, but nobody leaves the floor — not that there’s anywhere to sit, anyway.
Just then a guy with a lot of metal in his face sidles up to Colleen and whispers something.
She shakes her head. “Not tonight.”
“C’mon,” he says, “I’ve got the money.”
“I don’t care if you’ve got an American Express card. I don’t have anything.”
“Don’t be a bitch.”
“Fuck you, Vincent. Take a hike.”
When he just stands there, I step closer. “You heard her. Why don’t you mosey along?”
He glares down at me but asks Colleen, “Where’s Ed? What are you doing with this loser?”
Colleen takes hold of my shirt and pulls me into the crowd. “Are you nuts? ‘Why don’t you mosey along?’”
“I always wanted to say that to somebody. I’ve heard it in about a million Westerns.”
“Well, I can take care of myself, sheriff. You don’t want to mess with Vincent. He’s mean.”
I take both of her hands. “What are you doing with me?”
“Don’t get all serious on me, Ben. I’m having a good time.”
“I’m not getting all serious. I’m just curious.”
“I’m here, okay? And you’re here. We’re dancing. I’m not doing anything with you except dancing.”
“But you like me.”
Colleen takes a deep breath. “Not in the way you mean.”
“What way, then?”
“You’ll get mad if I tell you.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Guys always say that. Then they get mad.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
Colleen glances around. She puts both hands on my shoulders. She leans into me. I like this. If I’m going to get bad news, this is the way to get it. “When I’m with Ed,” she says, “sometimes I end up in a little room in Watts where all the guys have got guns and all the girls hate me because I’m white.
“But you want to make a movie, you’re worried about getting into college, you like to kiss. When I’m with you, it’s like I’m really in high school.”
She steps back then. The band plays a few long, ugly chords. The dance floor starts to fill up again.
“I’m not mad.”
“Really?”
“Colleen, it’s true. I am in high school. So are you.”
“So we’re still dancing?”
“Sure.” Because I’m not going to think about what she said as much as I’m going to think about her leaning into me while she said it.
So I try dancing again, and I’m actually doing better, actually looking less like somebody with one foot nailed to the floor, when a bare-chested dervish whirls by and I take an elbow to the cheek. I go right down right on my butt.
“Man!” I feel my face. “What was that all about?”
“Some fucking mosher.” Colleen crouches beside me. People peer down at me. “C’mon. Get up. I see him.”
“I’m okay. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s not okay. Get up and deck that fucker.” She holds out one hand and helps me to my fe
et.
“I’ve never decked anybody in my life.”
“Then it’s about time.”
“Easy for you to say. If things don’t work out, you can actually flee. I, on the other hand, have a tragic wound from trying to rock climb on my Harley.”
“He lays one fucking finger on you, I’ll put the hurt on him in a big way.”
There’s a great word to describe Colleen’s eyes right that second: coruscating. Emitting vivid flashes of light. She emits a few more, then leans into me. And kisses me. “Now let’s go.”
But we don’t get anywhere near the guy who’d hit me, because Ed slithers out of the dark and right up to Colleen.
“Hey, I went by your place.”
Colleen sticks out her tongue at him, like a seven-year-old. Then she dances away, putting a guy in leather pants between them.
Ed follows her. I follow Ed. We weave through the crowd.
“I have got some shit you will not believe, Colleen. It’s like one-toke hash but better. Unbelievably smooth. No paranoia, no nothing. It’s gorgeous. You’re gonna love it.”
Colleen slips between two girls, one in red, the other in green. Like stoplights.
When Ed turns around and frowns, there I am. He looks me up and down, then asks Colleen, “What’s goin’ on here?”
“Leave Ben alone. He just asked me to show him around. And why not, huh? You were busy with Ms. Wonderbra.”
“Hey, she was buying a ton of product for a kegger.”
“You took her out for lunch.”
Ed tucks his hands under both biceps so they look big enough to write an essay on. “To seal the deal is all. Relax.” He leans and whispers something.
Colleen shakes her head. “No, I’m dancing. With Ben.”
“Bring him along.” Ed glances down at me. “You want to party with us? This is very good stuff. If you like it, you know where to get more.”
“I mean it, Ed. Leave him alone.”
“Let him decide for himself. Hey Ben, you want to party or not?”
Colleen won’t look right at me anymore. “Don’t let him talk you into anything, Ben.”
I watch Ed put one arm around her. I watch her pretend to struggle, then lean into him. I say, “You came with me.”
She kisses Ed. On the lips. “Give me a second here, baby.” But she’s talking to him. Of course.
